"I woke up this morning and realised I was a "bad mum."

I woke up this morning and realised I was a BAD MUM.

Well let’s face it I knew I wasn’t exactly supermum already, one eye cast across the debris of toys, muesli bar wrappers and unfinished homework which lay strewn across the kitchen bench from the night before reminded me of that.

But it wasn’t until I rescued my iPad from under the remnants of an attempted cut-out paper doll chain now forever plastered together with squeezey yoghurt that I had it confirmed for me by Facebook.

I had failed.

I was a BAD MUM.

Just a glace across the accusations headlines glaring at me cemented the deal.

There in black and white was a list of parenting sins in today’s news. I had committed every single one of them.

From Victoria Beckham’s daughter having her ability to eat and speak deliberately undermined by her parents insistence she suck on a pink dummy to the beastly French parents who had abandoned their toddler alone in a playground and drove mercilessly to the beach 160km away in a Francophile version of Home Alone.

I had done that too.

Quelle horreur!

Each and every parenting fail a great big tick.

Sin 1: I gave my daughter a dummy.

The first headline to fell me was about Harper Beckham using a dummy.

“Experts warn David and Victoria Beckham’s little girl may end up with ‘speech or dental issues’ if she continues to use one.”

What about the rest of us millions of parents worldwide who don’t have an expert looking over their shoulders to hand out kindly advice through the daily newspapers about our children’s dental hygiene?

How are we meant to be shamed informed?

My confession: I too used a dummy for my children. Even worse -my kids all had a bottle – one didn’t give it up until he was the SAME AGE AS HARPER BECKHAM.

Sin 2: I gave my babies formula.

The next headline to glaringly stare me in the face:

“Formula is worse for babies than alcohol-tinged breastmilk” was yet another to add to my list of parenting sins.

The news that the Australian Breastfeeding Association had said it is “better to give breastfeed with a small amount of alcohol than to feed artificial baby milk” was causing the Mummy Wars to break out on Facebook.
My problem was that I didn’t have a side to join, as I had both fed my kids powdered poison but also been known to have a glass (or two) of wine and breastfeed my babies.

(No, not straight away after drinking it back away keyboard warriors.)

Sin 3: I forgot my son.

The black marks were stacking up against me because the next headline I found myself nodding along with yet again.

“Family leave toddler nearly 100 miles behind after ‘forgetting her’ “

Tick.

Aw come on.

Don’t judge me.

We’ve all forgotten our kids haven’t we? I mean I do have three…. Surely I am bound to lose one of them from time to time right?

Okay, well I didn’t exactly drive off 150km away like this family in France did and leave my daughter at a playground, only to hear on the radio while they were cruising along eating their baguettes, an appeal by police for all families currently to check their backseats as a small girl had been left behind.

But.. I did once begin to head to the park with half a dozen neighbourhood kids spewing out my front yard and happen to close the door on my then four-year old who was in the bathroom, and maybe I started to walk the rowdy rabble down the street before pausing to ask “Anyone seen Odie?” …

Only to run back and find my sweet little fella standing behind the front door when I opened it tearfully sniffing “You forgot me Mama.”

But it was just for a few minutes. N’est-ce pas?

Sin 4: Fed my kids junk food.

The headline read: “CSIRO Healthy Diet test: Australians get a dismal score of C.”

We’ve all been snack-shamed and party-food-shamed and lunchbox-shamed enough to know better. But I admit I often fail to meet the high standards of the kale-chips brigade.

Would you be shocked to know that only last week we actually had orange and poppy seed cake for dinner.

With icing.

Yeech. It’s tough to be perfect parent these days. To paraphrase David Beckham, who overnight posted a social media rant about judgey parents judging his parenting I say: Back off Bitches.

And while we are talking about the astuteness of the father of four  I may as well pull out another of David Beckham’s words of wisdom on the subject.

“My parents have been there for me, ever since I was about 7.”

Parenting is a hard gig and fact is we do the best we can. So if by the time our kids get to the age of seven we begin to work it out a little then lucky for them.

The rest of us BAD MUMS scrape through day by day.

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